


Boots of Steel

by Alexanderthegreatestgay



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-15
Updated: 2015-10-12
Packaged: 2018-01-12 14:05:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1188009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alexanderthegreatestgay/pseuds/Alexanderthegreatestgay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A meeting between Vimes and Vetinari takes an unexpected turn, and there are consequences.<br/>(AU where Sybil never existed, because i could never imagine Vimes cheating on her. Implied previous relationship between Vimes and Vetinari)<br/>*edit*<br/>I've got my plot sorted out now and there'll be some progress soon hopefully</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In Which Angua is not having a good day, and Vimes is lying in unidentified muck.

The man lay cradled in his dank and rancid gutter, staring glassily upwards while his brain slowly melted into a melancholy puddle of synapses and twitching nerves. The sky was bright with the smoggy cheerfulness and vague warmth of an early Morporkian afternoon, and His Grace Sir Samuel Vimes, Commander of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch, was very much drunk.

Elsewhere, Captain Angua von Überwald was not as happy. First, she'd had the bad luck to be assigned the nob's quarter for patrol. Even the Shades would've been better. She, and the undead in general, had come to a wary arrangement with the darker heart of the city. Namely, the people kept their distance and didn't try anything funny with silver bullets or garlic and the like, and in return, remained- in the more traditional sense of the word- living. At least in the Shades people had a healthy dose of self preservation. At least they would get out of the way if they saw a enraged werewolf charging at them, instead standing there with a puzzled expression, or looking round to see who was going to be mauled. The rich seemed to have the strange perspective that nothing bad could happen to them because they were important. Only poor people died of werewolf attack, because no one would stand for it in a high class society such as their's. Unfortunately the world often altered itself around people such as these, simply because it took less time and effort to change rules of the universe than to change the viewpoint of one determined person with enough money to sustain them in their beliefs. It was amazing how agreeable people became when in the presence of a large amount of money.  
Angua scowled underneath the shadow of her Watch Issue helmet. If only to make things worse, she'd been assigned that bloody vampire-her lips twisted wryly at the aptness of her mental phrasing- as a partner. She had started to think this was Nobby having his revenge for her mentioning to Vimes about the mysterious way all the Watchmen's boots kept disappearing when they came in to be treated by Igor. She wouldn't have doubted he had bribed someone to fix the roster for him, if it hadn't been Vimes on duty that morning. Vimes had known Nobby for longer than most were aware, and didn't feel the need to put up with his tricks.  
Angua felt a light touch on her shoulder, and immediately her hackles went up at the age old racial prejudice. She whirled around, blond hair fanning out with its momentum. The elegant ebony form of the vampire broke into a fanged grin. Salicia, or Sally, as she preferred to be called, was a Black Ribboner, and sworn off blood for the rest of her immortal "life", (and as Angua was occasionally inclined to slaughter innocent chickens, she couldn't really begrudge the effort) but that didn't stop Angua from hating her with every fiber of her undead being. The feeling was violently mutual. They'd managed to avoid actually fighting claw and fang, after the recent Koom Valley incident, and they had even reached a state of wary respect, but that couldn't over whelm years of genetic programming and interracial warfare.  
And of course, it was getting damn close to a full moon, and Angua was decidedly edgy about going out in public, especially in such fine company. Even in the harsh sun of high afternoon she could feel the cool touch of the moon, and suppressing the wolf was giving her a headache. Angua bared her even, white, human teeth in a snarl that belied her true nature and stalked on down the road, fantasizing about roast chicken and decapitated vampires.


	2. In which Vimes contemplates his position, Vetinari adresses a wizarding issue and Carrot's armor polishing is interupted.

In its small, sparse quarters above the Puesdepollis Yard Watchhouse, a broad freckled hand twisted its polishing cloth absentmindedly. The building had been given to the Watch after the old station on Treacle Mine road had been blasted to bits by the dragon that had terrorised the city all those years back. Vimes hadn't been exactly pleased by the upmarket area, but he hadn't been able to deny the usefulness of the extra space, especially with the new recruits that Vetinari had requested, (in that special way he had of requesting things; that painted quiet pictures of poison dripping onto a blade and made you remember that before accepting Patricianship, the man had been a contracting assassin) and soon the place had become home. Captain Carrot still had his rooms there from when Vimes had asked that he move out of his previous lodgings with the kindly Mrs. Palm and all her wonderful daughters. Vimes had seemed a bit stiff when he found that out actually, and Nobby had practically choked. Carrot had wondered if it was because the family lived in the Shades, and had assured the men that they were very polite and friendly and surely not Criminal Elements. Nobby had doubled over at this point, but Vimes had just looked at Carrot strangely and said something odd about them being too friendly for Carrot's own good.

The hand reached for the next of the carefully graded wire brushes, scouring away the day's sweat and dust and grime, proceeding through to the finest brush, then on to a soft buffing cloth, until the breastplate shone like lamplight in the shades -brilliant and comforting, but undeniably short lived. Captain Carrot Ironfoundersson's armour was rumoured to be the brightest in all Ankh-Morpork, though with the state of most of the city's metal, it couldn't be too hard. The other Watchmen speculated that the incessant shining was a side affect of his dwarvish upbringing, (despite being six foot six, Carrot had been found abandoned in a forest in the mountains and was adopted by the local king. He had been raised in dwarf sized tunnels, and as a result had gained the affectionate nickname "head-banger" among his fellow miners.) and that he used strange mining oils to achieve the blinding glow. Those more familiar with him however, suspected it was just part of the sheer keenness that personified the Captain. 

 

The reasons for, and the circumstances surrounding Commander Vimes' drunkenness were a mystery even to himself, and he had decided that if he was this thoroughly and systematically drunk, then he probably didn't want to find out what he had been trying to forget after all, because then he would have get drunk all over again, and he was wary of following that course of action because he was unsure just how drunk he could get before coming around in a circle and sobering up, which was something he wished to avoid. (Although the prospect of another bottle did have a certain charm.) Abandoning this as a potentially injurious, let alone circuitous, train of thought, he raised his whiskey fueled voice in harmony with the rest of the drunks, who sat or sprawled in various stages of oblivion along the many similar gutters citywide.

 

Ponder Stibbons turned a peculiar shade of greenish yellow in the face of the raised eyebrow that was the only response from the Patrictian. "And, sir, we'll certainly have it fixed again soon sir, definitely by next week Sir, nothing to worry about Sir, I have the students working as we speak Sir." Ponder trailed off, aware that he was running out of nails that went with his coffin's decor. Lord Ventinari gazed at the highly nervous wizard in front of him, possibly wondering whether a man could be any more uncertain of the promises he was making. "I have complete faith in your abilities, Ponder. I will assign someone to watch for your clacks tonight, bearing news of the completed repairs." Stibbons gulped as Vetinari proffered a whole shining cartload of nails in You're Doomed Black fresh from the forges of hell itself. The wizard bowed himself out hurriedly, attempting to hide the metaphorical hammer behind his back. 

 

As the young wizard left, he caught Vetinari sitting at his desk with an expression that on anyone else, he might have called weariness. But this was the Patrician. He didn't take breaks or show signs of tiredness. He tackled a workload that seemed inhuman, and made his subordinates question whether he ever slept, all the while remaining maddeningly even keeled and appearing almost as if he enjoyed his mounds of paperwork. Ponder had dismissed the incident by the time he was out of the palace, more preoccupied with trying to get Hex under control again, and save his hide.

 

There wasn't a careful knock at the door. "Come in, Sargent." Carrot called, knowing the identity of his visitor as the only man who announced his presence by pressing his ear to the door and breathing so loudly you could hear him even when Detritus was drilling recruits outside the window. Fred sidled in, wondering at his superior's X-ray vision, and fidgeted nervously with a dangling link of chainmail. He'd never really got used to being ranked by someone as young and green as Carrot, still thinking of him as the eager 16 year old who had arrested the head of the Thieves Guild on his first day in the city. "What was it you wanted, Sargent Colon?" Said Carrot, giving the incandescent metal a final buff. The chainmail spun faster and faster under Colon's sausage-like fingers. "Well lad, it was just that no one's seen the Commander all morning, since he went to see the Patrician. And you know how he gets."

Carrot turned sharply, but not before carefully returning his equipment to their rightful places. "Didn't someone go as an escort?" 

He knew he was grasping at straws. Vimes had eschewed the idea from the moment it was formed, saying he was damned if he couldn't walk the streets of his own bloody city by himself. Carrot had organised patrols to tail him, but Vimes had the city's winding paths etched into his -possibly mythical- heart, and could read the streets through the cardboard patched soles of his boots. Only a werewolf's nose could keep track of him on his home turf. "Is Angua out today? No, of course not. Send someone over to fetch her from Mrs Cake's will you?" 

Colon's digits practically blurred, and he stared at his feet as if willing them to take flight. "Weeell actually....she just went out. With the vampire. They're on the Scoone Avenue round."

Carrot glanced at the moon chart on his desk, checking to see if he'd gotten the day wrong. But no, there was the date, and just two days later, one framed in a circle, the symbol for a full moon. His brow furrowed in confusion. "What? Which Ta'grdzk was on roster duty this morning? Did someone let Nobby near it again?"

"Arrmm... Actually, Sam was looking at it this week."

Carrot's brow furrowed. Sargent Colon only ever called Vimes by his first name when he was _really_ worried. Like, oh-maybe-it-wasn't-such-a-good-idea-to-insult-that-heavily-armed-and-short-tempered-troll, worried.

"Oh dear. Wasn't it Angua who got Nobby caught for stealing from the sick bay uniform cupboard? He must have got his hands on the rota book this morning. The Commander may have had....other things on his mind."

Colon took a deep breath, causing his breast plate to wobble alarmingly on top of his jelly-like abdomen. "I'll send some men to fetch her then, shall I?" His causal words were betrayed by the anxious tremor in his voice. 

"No," said Carrot absently, "I'll go myself, and we'll start from there. Sally will come in handy too, if she's not otherwise occupied." He began to fasten his newly shone breastplate, and Fred Colon backed out nervously, already fiddling with the chain link again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pleeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaasssseeee give me feedback, suggestions, anything. thank you so much for bearing with me. Also my dwarvish may or may not be appalling so if you have any suggestions for that or just how I could improve that section because I think it makes carrot a little OOC instead of just stressed/worried as I had hoped


	3. In which Vimes visits a palace and a pub

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So so sorry for the long wait I know i'm terrible. It was those reviews that kept me laboring away at it though! Do tell me if i've made any mistakes or you have any feed back, i appreciate everything.  
> ~edit~  
> Special thanks to Elizabeth for your feedback and editing help :)

Before we can go on, and go on we must, perhaps we should return to the past for a little while, so that we may better understand. The Trousers of Time are flexible things after all.

So let us return to the morning, and find out what it is Sir Samuel was trying so hard to forget.

~

Lord Vetinari didn't even look up as Vimes entered, nor did his expression change.

As the door closed behind him, Vimes felt the usual frustration well up, but but before it could jam its boot into a solid foothold, it was swamped by the numbing exhaustion latched to the front of his skull. Normally he looked forward to dueling Vetinari's cool, twining mind -despite the fact that he could never win- but today Vimes hid behind stiff formality in an effort not to have to murder the supreme ruler of the city. Doing his best impression of a plank of wood in dented armor, he stared at his usual spot slightly to the right of the Patrician's ear. Sam glared his defiance at the plasterwork as he placed a Pantwell's between his teeth and lit it in the cup of his palm, daring Vetinari to argue. Of course, he didn't rise to the bait, merely looked pointedly at the silver ashtray on the desk as if to remind the watchman that this was not the streets, and grinding the stub under a boot heel would not be tolerated. 

 

 _Feeling the withdrawal today,_ the Patrician noted. He hadn't the heart to confiscate the cigar Vimes fell back on; gnawing it and puffing at it, as if it was his last grasp on sanity. Despite the allegations, Havelock Vetinari was not a cruel man; merely a calculating one. Right now, the Commander was more use to him angrily smoking in Vetinari's office, than chained to a wall in the scorpion pits. And he did cut rather a dashing picture with the fog of tobacco stroking his stubble and the glowing ember matching his intense gaze. Brushing the thought aside with a certain degree of astonishment at the carelessness of his mind, Vetinari addressed the Duke of Ankh with the current trivial issue. The conversation, stilted by tension and the veiled urge to strangle one another, devolved into a smooth stream of speech. Lord Vetinari was carefully and calmly talking about the day to day workings of the city, placing every word like a brick in some impossible structure, existing in dimensions even the wizards didn't have a name for. Every so often, when addressed, Vimes would bark a low "Sir" punctuating the conversation with short slashes of dark emotion. 

 

It was the lightheadedness of exhaustion that got to Vimes in the end. If he hadn't been so damn tired, he'd have stopped himself; brought his walls of stone down. But the day had been long; with the bottle in his bottom drawer tugging at him persistently, and so had the week, and the month, and the year. Vetinari was sitting there, threatening him about something probably unimportant and looking so bloody cool and collected. Dangerously, he allowed his eyes to leave their accustomed place to shoot venom at the Patrician, but they ended up studying his immaculate form instead. Sam was sure the man had to be at least as old as he was, but not a single gray strand embroidered the pitch of his hair or close trimmed beard. It was the Commander's private opinion that they wouldn't dare. Vetinari's knife edge frame was garbed in faded, practical black that looked unfairly good on him, and his body was impossibly, hypnotisingly still, right down to the pale steepled fingers on the desk. A question prompted Vimes to look up and deliver his customary bark of "Sir", encountering Vetinari's face on way. The features were glacial. Cold, pale, dangerous, but undeniably beautiful. His eyes were points of ice, where the light and shadow formed the unattainable harmony needed to create the most perfect, piercing blue, that bared your very soul in the most terrifying way. And if you looked for too long, Vimes thought you might become snow blinded, like a climber on a mountain, slowly losing your mind to hypothermia and dehydration. Too late, he realised he was that poor climber, as his body, in the absence of any orders from above, rerouted to the heart and he found himself grabbing Vetinari across the desk and kissing him hard on his stupid devious mouth.

 

Through most of the meeting, the Patrician saw Vimes as two people. When he was the first, the broken look on his face competed with the soot from his round and the bone etched weariness to make him look the most bleak and spent figure possible. Vetinari was mildly surprised by how determined his impassivity towards this had to be. Then suddenly the second man would appear; a being of raw fury and potent glares, mauling the cigar into submission. The watchman's posture was rigid, with a backbone like a iron rod, but perhaps only one that had been partially melted then allowed to cool again. His helmet was clasped under one arm with a grip fierce enough to leech colour from his knuckles; either to stop them swinging towards the hooked bridge of Vetinari's nose or seeking reassurance from the familiar metallic surface. 

Then, with an abrupt clash, the two sides merged. The cigar was thrown down violently and Vimes -proper, whole, Vimes- strode towards the desk. Vetinari felt a bizarre jolt of fear as Vimes so carelessly broke the elaborate rules of their game. And he didn't stop. The Commander was only a few inches away now. Everything was heightened far past the usual, his mind flashing like a dwarf's pickaxe after sighted gold. Vetinari could smell sweat, tobacco ash, shaving cream, and an underlying musk that was Vimes' own scent. A part of Vetinari which was still detached observed this with fascination: the profound effect proximity had on the human body. As Vimes grabbed Vetinari by the collar, dropping the helmet with a carpet muffled clang, the Patrician, despite years of assassin's school and the knowledge that he could have 12 highly trained guards in the room within seconds, almost mewled like a kitten. Then the lips met his own, and everything stopped. Somewhere in his head, a thousand little gears made of ice and steel shattered abruptly, and he kissed back, pouring out all the hurt and worry and anger and _love_ that had been forbidden to him for so long. Theirs wasn't a bright spark of emotion, like some lovers share, a firework to fizzle when it gets damp, but a dark rushing torrent, that of the river on finding the brave little Dutchman had gone on a tea break. All the careful little walls Vetinari had built, were being swept away, the whole dam destroyed by one chink in the armour. Before long, Vetinari's fingers were tangling in Sam's hair and Vimes was gripping Vetinari's shirt like his only weapon against a mad world. The helmet lay rocking on the carpet, and smoke rose from the spot where the cigar lay abandoned.

The stupidity of what he had done dawned on Vimes in the second after his lips met the other man's. This smashed every rule in the fragile agreement that kept them both sane, and he was surprised to find himself still alive. But then Vetinari was kissing him back. And as the flood gates opened, the sheer emotion revealed, the passion of the response, shocked Vimes. He felt his internal watchman stagger against the immense bulk of the water, going under for a moment as Vimes was lost to the world. He was transported to a place where this wasn't the worst possible thing he could do to his city and its ruler. Where it was actually plausible that this could work. And for this stolen eternity, things were better than they had been in a long, long time. Then Vetinari stiffened, and broke away, dropping his hands to the desk as the barriers slammed down, dropping Vimes back to reality. 

"Commander." Said the Patrician. The word, said so coldly and dispassionately, was like a knife resting casually at his jugular, bringing him up short. That was what he'd done wrong. He'd allowed himself, for a moment, to forget that he was the Commander of the City Watch, and that the man before him was the Patrician of AnkhMorpork. Instead he'd seen Vetinari. Beautiful, infuriating, brilliant, damnable Havelock Vetinari. Just a man, if an extraordinary one. He stumbled back, aware that his life was folding around him like it had been attacked by some mad origami enthusiast. For a moment he thought he saw a flicker in Vetinari's eyes-but no, he was the Patrician again, coolly smoothing the crumpling Sam's desperate grip had left on his shirt. Vimes looked away, picking up his helmet in order to avoid the flinty, impassive way the man he had just kissed was gazing at him. In a fit of petty spite the Commander crushed his abandoned cigar into the weave of the carpet, snuffing it out. Striding only slightly shakily to the door, he bowed formally. "My Lord," he said, not caring that the words threatened to choke him and he knew his voice was gruff and snarling. And then he turned with as close to military precision as he could without any actual training, or for that matter precision, so it was really nothing like the intended effect but instead his brain's way of keeping him on his feet long enough to reach the bottle in his desk drawer. 

~

As chance would have it, he didn't make it that far, after being interrupted by the sudden appearance of one of the city's many public houses. It was small and rather shabby (in fact any self respecting brawler would have walked right out. The rushes on the floor were hardly even starting to smell, and the tables might even have been construed as _clean_ ) but it was well stocked, and the bartender knew better than to argue when Vimes (his armour hopefully too battered and grubby to be recognized as belonging to the Commander of the Watch, let alone a Duke of Ankh) shoved some coins in his direction and growled that he'd bloody kill him if he told the coppers he'd been here. Hopefully now the man would assume his uniform was stolen if he recognized it. Telling himself it was to add to the picture, he let the man glimpse the definitely not regulation blackjack he had stashed under his chainmail, and felt a twisted satisfaction at the forcedly businesslike way the requested bottles were handed over. 

When the door had closed behind Vimes and his Bearhugger's, the barman picked up a cloth that frankly would have got a D- in the supporting sentient life department, and begin re-wiping the bar down in the typecast way of pub owners everywhere.


	4. In which Carrot and Co. embark and the two undead watchmen make a gruesome discovery

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> once again sorry for the wait, i didn't realise i had enough to make a decent chapter! I love all you folks who have reviewed and left kudos <3

Captain Carrot proceeded along the Scoone Avenue beat, greeting all the passers by with his usual cheerful familiarity.

"Lady Sicilla, Good day! How did his lordship's ball go the other evening? And Master Jeffreys, did that cabbage blight reach Sto Helit in the end? Have your stocks replenished?"  
However, the enthusiasm of the responses he received was somewhat muted by his company, in the way conversation often is in the presence of a 12 foot tall stone man carrying a seigebow the size of a tree.

Somewhat overshadowed by Detritus, Nobby and Sargent Colon huddled awkwardly like toadstools in a carefully tended flowerbed. Carrot was unsure if their presence meant they where genuinely worried for their Commander, or simply thought a fruitless chase around the city might be a convenient escape from their paperwork. In any case, they'd sent word to the other watch houses telling them to report if they saw the Commander, without, of course, letting him know what they were doing. Cheery Littlebottom, their forensics department, had implied getting ahead of a rumoured surprise inspection as the motivation behind the usual request, because at this stage they still held out hope that they could get Vimes back before he lost his job and/or the city's respect. Dutiful officers had checked the Drum and the Bucket for any clue, and in an astounding display of work ethic, had reported that Vimes hadn't been seen or sold to, before suggesting that they perhaps ought to remain in their current position "to see if he turned up later". Carrot had somewhat wearily acquiesced, hoping a night of drinking might make them forget why they'd been sent.

Angua often found that having two bodies got confusing. For instance, when she heard the sound of familiar proprietorial boots on cobbles, she could have sworn she felt a pair of blond furred ears prick up and a phantom tail thud against the street. Straightening sharply from her crouch beside the corpse, she shot a glance at Sally, who was hiding in the darkest corner and reapplying her SPF 400.  
"He's worried." The vampire said, cocking her head.  
"I know that," snapped Angua, "He's coming to get us, isn't he?"  
Sally glared at her, and shoved her sunscreen bottle back into... Well let's just say there aren't that many pockets on a breastplate, and she wasn't afraid to improvise. "He's brought a troll, probably Detritus, what's either Corporal Nobbs or an aardvark with arrhythmia, and Sargent Colon." She shuddered. "I'd know those clogged arteries anywhere."  
Angua looked back at the prone form at their feet. "You think he's already heard about this poor bastard?"  
"Maybe. But Fred and Nobby? He wouldn't take them on an ordinary call out. Its something personal, or they'd still be playing Cripple Mr Onion at the watchhouse. However, he's still about five minutes away. Let's get what we can from the stiff."  
Angua nodded, "But first we better let him know where we are. This is a deviation from the beat after all."  
She took off her helmet, loosing acres of golden tresses, and loped away to place it at the mouth of the alley.

  
Sally began to search through the man's rags, displeasure written across her chalk pale face. Just as Angua reached her, her expression turned triumphant. "Ah ha!" She crowed. "A Thieves Guild license! Our friend here was one 'Scavvy Harry' and he was licensed to steal from any unin-sewer-ants-ed party that entered 'The Empresses' Dustbinery'." Sally raised her eyebrows. "That sounds like a strip club, but I'm going to assume it's this alley."  
Angua held out her hand for the license, inspected it for a while, then gave it a wary sniff. "Yep," she said, before sneezing violently. "That checks ou-CHOO! The Thieves Guild always put in aAACHOO! little something extra for ACHOO! me in case the Watch ever tries to ah ah ahCHOO! track them down."  
"Old habits die hard, I guess," said Sally taking the license back.  
Angua rubbed at her nose, the sneezing subsiding now the source was out of her immediate vicinity. "I don't know if that's a saying you ought to be endorsing, my fangéd friend."  
Sally shrugged. "Well, it's no easy thing to kick the blood, Scooby Doo. But it's harder still to be hunted all your afterlife. Anyway, your turn. Go get changed."  
Angua didn't immediately do as she was told, instead peering curiously at their victim's attire. "Why's he dressed like a beggar? Thief like him, with a good round in a wealthy part of town like this, could surely afford some better, scarier clothes."  
"Everyone's rich enough to be in-sewer-ed in this part of town?" suggested Sally.  
"Or maybe he was hiding from someone," said Angua. "We'll see what we can get out of the guild." And with that she found herself an alcove and stripped down to her badge on its collar. She had got into the habit of changing once out of her uniform after the first couple of times of having her wages docked to pay for new chainmail, despite the fact that having to stash clothes around the city meant a fairly high theft rate.

At first Angua was overwhelmed with the bold scents of unwashed man, refuse, effluent and other typical smells of the city's many alleys. To Angua's shifted nose, none of these smells were unpleasant the way they would be to a human -even the smell of Harry King's yard was one of interest rather than distaste- but their vibrancy took sifting through. She smelt death, but no blood; the victim's fear, but not even sweat from the culprit. Her damp nose lead her to his wrists, following the scent of burned flesh. But not the kind the might result from someone putting a match to him, more like... A brand, she decided as she snuffled at his rags, pushing them up so the inside of his wrist was exposed. She heard Sally swear as she chased the smell around inside her head. She didn't think this was a wizards work, it struck her as not enough reward for too much ick. There was however, something she had come to associate with wizards and priests: the smell of lightning. It was coloured a little something like the dwarves too, like mechanisms and grease. And metal. Definitely metal, though not quite like any metal she knew. Could this man have been killed by some new weapon never before used? Who would go to that much trouble to kill an ordinary thief? He smelled like he had been struck by lightning, but that usually resulted in there being barely enough corpse left for one of Cheery's new evidence baggies, and for that matter, there'd been no storm last night. Angua growled. His internal organs were cooked. She could smell it strongly now she had it fixed in her hind brain- that delicious roasted odor, barely 12 hours cooled... and she really shouldn't be out right now.

Sally gave her a look of alarm as she shuddered and snarled, her form pulsing as she fought to change back. The vampire gently sidled between Angua and the body, despite the fact that every instinct told her that this was exactly the wrong thing to do.  
The right to do, her hind brain said, the sensible thing to do, was not to draw attention to herself as a target. To not get between a wolf and its prey. To not, and this was the crucial part, be a goddamn vampire around a werewolf who was slowly losing control!  
...but the body was evidence, and she was a watchman first and a sane person second.

Besides, this guy was just _icky_ and Angua would definitely not enjoy picking him out of her teeth in the morning. Friends didn't let friends have dinner with or of men that dressed like _that_.  
She closed her eyes and prayed Carrot would get there soon.


	5. Chapter 5

 

Vimes' cheerful drunkenness had lapsed somewhat into the primal instincts of a wounded creature. He needed a place to hide and drink himself into a stupor. His armour was now dark with a representative sample of the combined waste products of the city with millions of varied life forms and very little in the way of a sewage system, and it was gluing him to the ground most alarmingly. With a series of complicated foldings of the limbs and body, he extricated himself from his breastplate and boots, the thin leather of which regrettably seemed to be dissolving into the muck around them. He levered himself up after a few tries, restocked his alcohol supply, and dissolved with surprising nimbleness into the darkness of a gap between the two buildings, socked feet padding silently along the bricks.

Angua's teeth were very white, even in her wolf form, thought Sally, slightly lightheaded. She wondered bizarrely if she used those dental approved dog treats, or if cleaning her teeth in human form affected her canine counterpart.  
The laudable nature of Sally's dedication to her duty as a member of the Watch appeared to be lost on Angua. The werewolf had lost all of her usual modesty about changing in front of other peopled and was desperately fighting to resume her two legged form, but the closeness of the full moon and the scent of meat was giving the wolf the upper hand. Sally watched in horror as every so often patches of fur would morph into smooth skin and then back again, and occasional odd limbs sprouted & shrunk, while an awful amalgamation of beast and human vocal chords growled in frustration.  
Just at the point when Angua seemed to have made up her minds, and was poised to give Sally's throat an out of body experience, she suddenly sat up and began thumping her tail against the cobbles, whining happily at the figure striding towards them. As Carrot reached them, he gave Angua a broad, puzzled smile, at which point she seemed to realize what she was doing, and slunk away to change in embarrassment. Sally attempted not to look as weak kneed with relief as she felt.  
The rest of Carrot's patrol filed in, except for Detritus, who was left standing on the main street, as he had as of yet not figured out how to fit both him and his Goliath of a bow into the narrow alley.  
Fred appeared to be turning a strange mixture of colours somewhere between the flush of exertion after having to walk for an extended period of time at more than a half-hearted shuffle and the ashen pale associated with stumbling on an unexpected cadaver. It made him look a little like a picnic blanket.  
Nobby was sidling towards the thief's shoes in his trademark manner, but the temperance league member's doomful look appeared to give him pause, and he decided instead to address the puzzle of getting the spit soaked mess of tar and cigarette paper behind his ear to hold a spark.  
Carrot merely gazed at the man's face with solemn studiousness, cradling Angua's retrieved helmet and rubbing his fingers along the edges of the metal as Sally found her voice,  and filled him in.  
By the time Sally had passed all of Angua's uniform (sans helmet) around the corner from its pile with a sort of long suffering nonchalance and Nobby had made his way through half a packet of matches unsuccessfully, Carrots brow had furrowed gently and the corpse was veritably blushing from all the attention it was getting. Sally lifted the tattered rags at its wrists gently to expose the flaking welt, her face pinched and even whiter than usual. She'd seen her fair share of bodies before, blood had to come from somewhere, but at least those had had the courtesy to be neat. This kind of thing, with its charred, melty bits was not something she wanted to become as familiar with as Carrot appeared to be. As Sally's retelling progressed to the part in which she had almost died horribly (if only temporarily), Nobby suddenly appeared to develop a vested interest in helping Detritus with his spatial difficulties at the entrance of the alley, as it dawned on him, in the way the dappling of jungle vines suddenly becomes a hungry tiger, that he was now on the bad side of _two_ very dangerous undead women and, worse than that, he could see the concern and disappointment in Captain Carrot's eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you very much for reading! I'm sorry if there are any mistakes, please tell me if you find one, and I'll fix it. Hope you had as much fun as i did!


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